Tuesday, February 15, 2022

day of trauma

This was a traumatic day, if you were a cat.

Or specifically if you were Tybalt, for whom this was the day he went back in to the vet to have his teeth cleaned. Having been to the vet for a checkup just a couple months ago, he hadn't forgotten what the carrier meant, and he howled loudly and pitifully all the way there and back again.

Besides the cleaning came the extraction. From what I gathered from the six minutes of feline dental natter the vet gave me about it, cats have teeth that sometimes get absorbed back into the jaw, or something, but sometimes they don't absorb properly and cause pain, so they have to come out.

This meant putting Tybalt on mushy food for a while - easy enough, just soak his kibble in some water - and give him some medication, a pain reliever that's supposed to go into the gums. This comes in a set of pre-loaded syringes, but I was surprised to find when I took the cap off one that there's no needle; I guess it just spreads over the surface and is absorbed. While B. wrapped the cat in a towel and held on, I managed to get the syringe against the roof of his mouth just behind the teeth. I hope that will be good enough. Five more doses over three days ...

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